Using Rational Publishing Engine to document compliance: Part 1. Overview and workflowBy Dr. Einar W. Karlsen (einar.karlsen@de.ibm.com), Solution Architect, North-East Europe, IBMThis series explains how to use IBM Rational Publishing Engine to generate compliance-relevant reports. Part 1 gives a short overview of the software, describes the report development workflow, and provides a sample report that is used in the subsequent articles to show the capabilities of the tool.Product: Rational Publishing Engine

Using Rational Publishing Engine to document compliance: Part 2. Design and layout By Dr. Einar W. Karlsen (einar.karlsen@de.ibm.com), Solution Architect, North-East Europe, IBMPart 2 in this series shows how to decompose large and complex reports into smaller, more manageable templates. It also covers developing reusable templates and creating a standard layout that adheres to your company's standards and style guidelines.

Product: Rational Publishing Engine

Using Rational Publishing Engine to document compliance: Part 3. Reporting from multiple data sourcesBy Dr. Einar W. Karlsen (einar.karlsen@de.ibm.com), Solution Architect, North-East Europe, IBMPart 3 shows how to create reports that take information from several data sources, including software from other companies. It explains how Rational Publishing Engine establishes traces from information in one source to data managed by another tool and then combines them into the same document. Product: Rational Publishing Engine

It's a short work week here in the US for Thanksgiving. In the spirit of all things software development and giving thanks, check out this article from Neil McAllister at InfoWorld, "What I'm thankful for as a developer"

Do you agree with his list? What improvements in software development are you still waiting for?

We'll be back next week with our regular update of newly published articles, downloads, and featured authors.

Install the DB2 database included in Rational ClearQuest for better supportBy Vivek K Pandey (vivpande@in.ibm.com), IT Specialist - Rational change and configuration management, IBMYou can use any of several relational databases with ClearQuest 7.1.2 or later, but you save money and get enhanced support by using DB2, because it is bundled with ClearQuest. Setup on UNIX can be tricky if you are not familiar with DB2, so this article explains installation and configuration.Product: IBM Rational ClearQuest

Create or automatically generate baselines from multiple RequisitePro projectsBy Fabian Lomeli (fabian@mx1.ibm.com), Software Engineer, IBMBy using the Baseline Manager Library API in Rational RequisitePro, you can create baselines, view them in a directory, or compare two baselines. You can also build new projects from existing project baselines, create baselines for multiple projects, or automate baseline creation. Learn how.Product: IBM Rational RequisitePro

Case study of the Rational Harmony systems engineering process, Part 1By Mohit Choudhary (mocho74@gmail.com), Systems Engineer, RealTime TechSolutionsModel-based systems engineering (MBSE) captures system requirements plus the design decisions that fulfill them. It can help validate cost, performance studies, or design choices. This is a case study of IBM Rational Harmony for Systems Engineers, an MBSE method that translates functional requirements into a description of system operations.Product: IBM Rational Harmony

Case study of the Rational Harmony systems engineering process, Part 2Distributed systems are inherently data-oriented, so the focus on data entities and behavior is essential in model-based systems engineering (MBSE), such as the Rational Harmony process. This article explores how to develop an MBSE process for analysis and design of distributed systems.Product: IBM Rational Harmony

This week we are also highlighting the following items on our home page and product pages that you may find of interest.

We are pleased feature Contributing Author Steve Speicher Steve Speicher is an IBM Senior Technical Staff Member who focuses on Rational change management solutions and integrations. He is the lead for the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) Core and Change Management areas, which deliver open REST and Linked Data specifications, as well as implementations within the Rational change management products. Steve formerly worked in emerging standardization efforts in healthcare and compound documents (W3C). He received an IBM Software Group Master Inventor award in 2009.Visit Steve's developerWorks profileRead all of Steve's developerWorks contentLearn about the Author achievement recognition program

Change management in mainframe applications: Identify assets By Amy M. Silberbauer (asilber@us.ibm.com), Executive IT Specialist, IBMSoftware maintenance can require up to 70% of your IT budget, so managing change to shorten the maintenance cycle, reduce risk, and ensure quality is critical in today's economy. This three-part series explains how to use IBM Rational Asset Analyzer to achieve those goals.Product: IBM Rational Asset Analyzer

Change management in mainframe applications: Manage change request scope and riskBy Amy M. Silberbauer (asilber@us.ibm.com), Executive IT Specialist, IBMPart 2 describes how to perform an impact analysis to manage the scope and risk of a software change request. The focus is on changes to data definitions and data characteristics, but the concepts can be applied to other application components.Product: IBM Rational Asset Analyzer

Change management in mainframe applications: Customize impact analysis resultsBy Amy M. Silberbauer (asilber@us.ibm.com), Executive IT Specialist, IBMPart 3 describes how to customize the impact analysis results and aggregate those results, using the Custom Query capability in Rational Asset Analyzer. Then you learn you learn how to create a "bill of materials" based on those results and share it with others as a spreadsheet. Product: IBM Rational Asset Analyzer

This week we are also highlighting the following items on our home page and product pages that you may find of interest.

Try Rational Performance Tester and more in the SOA sandboxLearn how to use IBM WebSphere Application Server for Developers, IBM Monitoring and Diagnostic Tools for Java, and Rational Performance Tester in this new SOA sandbox exercise: Java Troubleshooting with WebSphere Application Server for Developers. Product: IBM Rational Performance Tester

Track design changes dynamically through BIRT reports By Shashi B. Pahwa (shashipahwa@in.ibm.com), IT Architect, IBM and Shishir Narain (nshishir@in.ibm.com), IT Architect, IBMKeeping the software design documents in sync with the code throughout software development is one of the biggest challenges for architects and designers. Keep them consistent by using Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) to get reports from Rational Software Architect design models.Product: IBM Rational Software Architect

This week we are also highlighting the following items on our home page and product pages that you may find of interest.

Evaluate: Rational Developer for zEnterpriseIBM® Rational® Developer for zEnterprise is a unified development tool for heterogeneous application development spanning systems such as z/OS, CICS, IMS, DB2, WebSphere Application Server, and Power Systems Software. Download the fully featured product for an evaluation period of 60 days.

IBM Champions: John McDonald, Co-founder of CloudOnedeveloperWorks' Scott Laningham interviews John McDonald, a 20-year veteran of IBM and co-founder of CloudOne, the first IBM Rational Business Partner to offer Software as a Service and cloud hosting to Rational customers.

What's new in XL C/C++ for z/VM, V1.3IBM XL C/C++ for z/VM compiler delivers various performance and usability enhancements for the z/OS V1R12 release. Get the details on these feature and all other aspects of the compiler in the relevant compiler documentation.Product: XL C/C++

Hats off to HATS V8.0This article provides a quick HATS refresher and then delves into the new features delivered in HATS V8.0.Product: IBM Rational Host Access Transformation Services

We are pleased feature Contributing Author Fenglian XuDr. Fenglian Xu recently the User Interface Generator development team at the IBM Hursley Software Lab in the UK. She has worked on various IBM WebSphere products, and her technical expertise encompasses service-oriented architecture (SOA), Unified Modeling Language (UML), Java, J2EE, XML, XPATH, the Java Message Service (JMS), WebSphere MQ JMS and Web services over the JMS, service component architecture (SCA), and the Service Gateway pattern. Previously, she worked for various IT companies, from middleware to applications, and with the UK eScience pilot project, GEODISE, for which she prototyped a workflow tool in SOA. She received her PhD degree in computer science from the University of Southampton in 1998 and her BSc in mathematics from Xian Jiaotong University in 1989.Visit Fenglian's developerWorks profileSee all of Fenglian's developerWorks contentLearn about the Author achievement recognition program

This week we are also highlighting the following items on our home page and product pages that you may find of interest.

Includes a link to a demo of how to give users access to objects, plus learn about the relationships of users, access groups and permissions, and using subgroups to set up hierarchical access. (h/t Steven Southworth, Video Junkie blog)

A practical guide to developing enterprise architectureBy Franki Schafrik, Senior Enterprise Architect, IBMWith humor, Franki Schafrik guides you through identifying the questions that enterprise architecture must answer, developing an approach and models, and analyses to see where you can make improvements. She assumes that you use modeling software, such as Rational System Architect, for your architecture.Product: IBM Rational System Architect

Develop TXSeries CICS apps with Rational Developer for Power Systems Software, Part 2By Balaji S. Kumar, Software Engineer, IBM, Hariharan N. Venkitachalam, Senior Software Engineer, IBM, Janaki Sundar, Staff Software Engineer, IBM, Nageswararao V. Gokavarapu, Staff Software Engineer, IBM In Part 2 of this three-part tutorial, you use the IBM Rational Developer for Power Systems Software configurations from Part 1 to create a new AIX COBOL project and an AIX COBOL program file. Code for a sample CICS application and a sample Makefile file is included.Product: IBM Rational Developer for Power Systems Software

Apply agile project management methods for more efficient hardware developmentBy Wenwei Tang, IBMBy using IBM Rational Team Concert to apply these agile development methods to hardware projects, you can respond better to rapidly changing requirements and manage more efficiently and effectively. You can also use this as a guide to make the transition from waterfall to agile methods.Product: IBM Rational Team Concert

This week we are also highlighting the following item on our home page and product pages that you may find of interest.

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